While the present invention is not restricted to considerations as to improvements in the operations of home and commercial laundry dryers, yet a discussion of these will be helpful in suggesting broad ranges of application of the invention.
As to dryers of the type described, these of course are intended to receive washed and rinsed laundry coming from a washing machine. Additives such as soaps, detergents, softeners, and bleaches are used in washers, and traces of these ingredients are contained in the moisture of articles introduced into a receiving dryer. Such additives almost universally are acidic in nature and/or cause a cling of the laundry items as these are tumbled in the dryer. Static cling is frequently encountered as one retrieves articles from the dryer; frequently, anti-static strips are included in the dryer to reduce such static cling. The inter-clothes' friction and acidic condition in normal dryers also cause excess friction between the clothes being dried, producing an abundance of lint production and accumulations, and filter units such as the one shown in the inventors' own U.S. Pat. No. 5,236,478, issued Aug. 17, 1993 and fully incorporated herein by way of reference, indicate a means for drastically reducing the entrainment of lint in conduit venting the dryer to the exterior. Even in the best of cases, there will be some accumulations of lint at the underside of the filter tray used in such filter unit.
It has occurred to the inventors that if conditions in the dryer were enhanced to drastically reduce the production of lint in the first instance, then systems for venting dryers would operate even more effectively. The present invention attacks the problem in a particular manner so as to produce two effects: a reduction in the acidity present in the dryer, and a reduction in the "cling" or static electricity attraction and resultant friction between articles in the dryer as well as between such articles and the dryer walls. No other patent or other art is known which is believed to be directly in point as to the invention at issue.